General Psychiatry Quiz

Answer: hallucinations

Positive symptoms are those which are generally indicated by a change in behaviour. They include hallucinations and delusions. Negative symptoms are symptoms involving withdrawal or lack of functioning, such as lack of motivation and drive.

Answer: Delirium Tremens

DTs are a serious, and potentially fatal, consequence of withdrawal from alcohol. The state includes fitting and loss of consciousness. It can occur when someone whose metabolism is physically dependent on alcohol stops taking it, and is the most severe of the withdrawal symptoms that can occur.

Answer: Jung

Jung was a contemporary of Freud and, like him, described theories of the working of the human mind. The collective unconscious is a controversial idea that there are elements of the unconscious part of the mind which are shared between people. This is the opposite of the idea that the human mind is a tabula rasa or blank slate upon which experiences act, saying instead that there are elements of the mind which are universal and already present in all people.

Answer: Fluoxetine

Fluoxetine is the generic name for the well known antidepressant Prozac. Fluoride is an element used to help strengthen tooth enamel. Chlorpromazine is an antipsychotic medication. Diazepam is a benzodiazepine tranquiliser.

Answer: Heights

Acro comes from the Greek word for height, while phobia means "fear of". It should not be confused with agoraphobia, which is fear of going out: literally fear of the marketplace or "agora".

Answer: 1950s

These drugs are in such widespread use in the twenty-first century, it seems surprising that they only date back to the 1950s. They have revolutionized the treatment of psychosis, but also come with many potentially serious side-effects, which can limit their usefulness as many people will stop taking them because of the side-effects.

Answer: normal distribution

IQ testing of a population produces a bell shaped or normal distribution graph, with 100 being the mean value.

Answer: post traumatic stress disorder

PTSD is a condition that can occur after a significant trauma like being in battle, or being assaulted or abused. It became more widely known after First World War, when it was known as "shell shock" and often includes distress at reminders of the trauma, such as becoming distressed by hearing a car backfire because it reminds you of gunfire.

Answer: less than 10%

The fear that most people with schizophrenia are violent or dangerous is misplaced. Studies in the UK and the USA have found that the proportion of violent crime attributable to schizophrenia is less than 10%, with a review of the literature, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2002, showing this to be the case consistently over many studies.

Answer: cognitive behaviour therapy

ECT and gluten-free diet are not treatments for anxiety disorders. Benzodiazepines should only be used in the short term (2-4 weeks) (UK National Institute of Clinal Excellence guidelines 2009). They are very addictive and may well cause an increase and not a decrease of mental health problems if used in the long term.